Abstract/Summary

Project n° 513692
Combined genetic and functional genomic approaches for stress and disease resistance marker assisted selection in fish and shellfish: AQUAFIRST
The overall aims of the project is to identify, in sea bream, sea bass, oyster, and rainbow trout, genes of which expression is associated with disease and stress resistance and, from this information, to develop genetic approaches that allow characterisation of genetic markers for marker-assisted selective breeding of disease and/or stress resistant individuals.
For such project, the following main objectives will have to be reached:
 Characterisation in sea bream, sea bass, trout and oyster, stress- and disease-responsive genes as potential candidate gene markers for desirable traits;
 Seeking associations between (i) variations in response to stress and resistance to pathogen and (ii) selected candidates genes and microsatellites markers by segregation analysis in appropriate families (QTL analysis);
 Mapping of these genes in linkage and gene maps.
In order to characterize disease and stress-responsive genes in seabream, sea bass, trout and oyster, a functional genomic using microarray technology have been developed. During the second year of the project, all planned cDNA collections have been obtained and sequenced which allow the project, y combining his genomic resources with that of Marine Genomic Europe NoE to establish a database containing a large collections of EST for seabass, seabream, oyster and rainbow trout. These cDNA will be spotted on microarrays for seabream, seabass and oyster. For trout, this collection allowed the design of synthetic oligonucleotides which have been spotted in microarrays. All partners have been trained to analysis of microarray data and in vivo stress/pathogen exposure experiments have been carried out and validated. Gene profile analysis will be performed during the first part of the 3rd year.
During the second year of the project, we have also carried on several tasks devoted to characterization of genetic markers associated with stress or disease resistance. This includes search for SNP in stress or disease-resistant genes, production of relevant biological material (oyster and trout) on which a QTL analysis would be developed, development of new genetic markers (microsatellites) which would be later used for genotyping individuals in QTL protocols, construction of a radiation hybrid panel for sea bass.